


smoke

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2019-05-17 02:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: Mikoto expects to die young.





	smoke

**Author's Note:**

> **notes:** Toying with the idea of Mikoto as being a sort of back-to-basics shinobi. You know, classic weapons, basic ninjutsu. Nothing fancy except she is really really good at it. Just doing some exploring here.

Mikoto expects to die young. She tells Fugaku this as they sit along the banks of the river, enjoying the mildness of the afternoon; a setting entirely unsuitable for such conversation.

And really, despite the melodrama of that simple statement, Mikoto sees it as only a practical assumption, and not only because she is a shinobi. She is eighteen, she is a jounin, with family long since passed to the other side. She would never take unnecessary risks, and certainly not with a team—but when one is on one’s own, calculated risks could be much steeper.

Of course, the person she is explaining this philosophy to is someone whose person is considered invaluable not only by his large, extended family but also by the village at large. Uchiha Fugaku will soon succeed his father as the clan head, and when he does he will no longer take missions in the same capacity that he does now.

It is a shame, Mikoto thinks, drawing up her knees and resting her head in her arms, studying him. He has been a comfortable presence on their missions, a reliable partner. An ally. A friend.

She will miss him.

She mediates on the feeling of missing him, wrapping around her like silk. She inhales, feeling the ache tighten about her, and exhales, letting it loosen, unraveling with the movements of the breeze.

“Not all shinobi die young,” he says, but not like he is reminding her of something obvious. It is merely a statement. Still, his tone is abrupt; she could see where others might misinterpret him. Fugaku is a funny one like that. He is not awkward, exactly, and she has never experienced any doubt following him, but for a man whose duty in life will be in negotiating and interpreting the intentions of others he is fundamentally terrible at channeling his own. His looks do not help: his strong features and body makes him look both older and sterner than he is. Mikoto is happy that she has never had such trouble deciphering him.

“Many raise families,” he continues, and she blinks, so that he sees that she is listening.

Here is another matter on which their existences differ. Fugaku expects to have a family, is expected to have a family. He has enough cousins that not having one probably wouldn’t be a problem, but it is expected that the clan head has a family of his own, and it is not as though Fugaku is disinclined to the idea. Mikoto would like a family—misses the feeling of coming home to others who are happy to see her—but it feels loose, not a certainty.

“I don’t think I could do that,” she says instead. “Have a family and be a kunoichi at the same time. It would split my focus—I can’t be the best shinobi I can be if I am constantly thinking about saving my own skin. What sort of life is that? ”

“It is a life many good shinobi lead. There is more to being a shinobi than the success of the mission,” says Fugaku, scowling, genuinely annoyed.

Good, she likes it when he reminds her, that however much of a fondness he harbors for her (or her for him) he does not mince his words.

“Of course there is. But not for my skillset.” Just like she reminds him. She has no special techniques, inherited or developed. Her arts are in the most basic of ninjutsu—smoke and clones and a specialized cache of weapons. Sneaking into the houses of politicians with a knife. Slipping back out, the knife wiped clean. Disarming retainers—killing them if need be.

She is simply the best.

And because she is the best, the missions that come her way have a very high pay grade and an equally high risk of fatality.

“You know my abilities, Fugaku. I’m wasted on escort, usually redundant for anything else and I don’t have anything like your clan technique or your bloodline to use myself.”

What she does not say, because he isn’t stupid: she’s happy with this niche she has carved for herself. The clean simplicity of her kills. Certainly, she could train up on other weapons. Develop new techniques. But this suits her, flickering in and out of strongholds like smoke. The ease of her shruikenjutsu, with its lack of frills. It is neither flashy nor impressive, and her name will never be attached to any of her missions, lest they go horribly wrong.

But it suits her.

But this intangibility—when she has children, she cannot be like that. She will have to be flesh and blood, always there, whether to comfort or curse.

She cannot be either a mother or a shinobi—her kind of shinobi—in halves. She will need to devote her full attention to either one or the other.

She tells him this. The annoyance in his eyes has faded, replaced with understanding. Or if not that, at the very least, acceptance.

And in the meantime that is enough.

“ _Do_  you want a family?” he asks, genuinely curious.

Mikoto nods. “If I live to be tired of this.” Specialization is all well and good, but too many of the same missions, even the dangerous ones, grow tiresome. “I don’t expect to have a future, but  _if_  I do—”

She hesitates, for even speaking of it already grounds her.

“ _If_  I want or have a future,” she says, drawing the admission out slowly, picking her words so she will not trap herself. “I will want a family.”

Fugaku nods once, and lies back on the riverbank, one hand behind his head and the other hand shading his eyes.

“Well, if that future ever comes, and should you decide you wish to speak it over with someone, come see me,” he says. “That will be my domain. The future and families and making sure they all work out.”

He speaks ruefully, with exasperation. But even with his hand blocking half his face Mikoto can see that he is blushing, and it is not hard to read in between the lines.

She smiles then, scooting forwards so that she is leaning over him, her hair just brushing his face.

“You’ll give me my family?” she asks, her question lilting.

“Hn,” grunts Fugaku, giving a short jerk of the head; she takes it for a nod.

He is really blushing.

She leans even further down, pushing away the hand over his eyes, until their foreheads are touching.

“Very well,” Mikoto says, her lips barely moving, highly aware of their proximity. “I, Mikoto, formally promise that should the day come that I find myself in want of a future, I will come to you to seek my family.”

She can tell he is smiling himself now, even if she can’t see it.

“Then I, Uchiha Fugaku, formally promise that should you ever be in want of a future, that you will find your family among the Uchiha—”

“You’re twisting it, that’s not what I said!” Mikoto objects, laughing.

She is still laughing when Fugaku rolls them over, pressing her into the soft grass, the sun too bright in her eyes before it is obscured by him, her flesh very real under his hands, at least in this moment.


End file.
